大象传媒

Following Japan`s treachorous attack on Pearl Harbour at the end of 1941, America came into the war on our side. We soon experienced an invasion of American servicemen. Brash, bouncy, over-confident, they succeeded in making our girls weak at the knees. Unlike the drab, rationed, war-weary inhabitants of this beleagured island they came from a land filled with goodies, goodies they brought with them:- sheer silk stockings with genuine seams up the back (our girls had been forced to paint their legs with 'liquid stockings' and persuade a brother or friend with a straight eye to draw a line from 'heel to heaven'); there were 'lifesaver' sweets with a hole (like Polo mints) - my future but then young Jean was offered one while travelling on a train to london accompanied by her older, attractive sister Margaret, the chat-up line failed on this occasion but they were given packets of chewing gum.

The kids used to chase the Americans, shouting "Got any gum, chum?" The girls had other priorities! The lure of these charismatic men with their Hollywood drawl and promise of a glamour born more of the cinema rather than that of cold reality set their heads and hearts in a whirl. Their attraction rather than their looks proved irresistable to single girls and married women alike. Englishmen on the Home Front were jealously disdainful of them and very quickly we heard them refer to the unwelcome intruders as 'over-paid, over-sexed and over here.'

There was a great deal of truth in the phrase. Liasons were so out of control that special wardens were engaged to 'clean up the local parks' every morning. Like servicemen of all nations, the 'Yanks' as they were called exploited the situation to the full. Unfortunately this resulted in a spate of unwanted pregnancies and back-street abortions. Orphanages became overfull with rejected babies, to the extent they sought foster parents for their young inmates. Our mother immediately volunteered her services, and a succession of babies came and went until one particular little boy stayed longer than the others. His mother only visited him during his first year with us then she literally disappeared. When Ronald was sixteen we were all asked if we had any objection to his being adopted into our family. We hadn't - and he was!

Our envious local men exacted punitive punishment on the Yanks by selling them 'genuine Scottish whiskey'. Not so genuine as it happened. Oh! the bottles were, having been provide by 'mine hosts' of the local hostelries. However, their contents were nothing more than potato wine, rather like Irish potcheen. It had a kick to it which fooled our American cousins and succeeded in satisfying our men`s yearning to pay them back.

To make us feel even more drab, if that could be said to be the the right adjective, soap rationing began in February 1942, but he good news was that Field Marshall Montgomery, Commander of the Eighth Army and his forces among them our cousin Reg had chased Rommel into full retreat in November of that same year. The war appeared to be going ourway, we had already discissed a 2nd Front with the Russian leader Stalin, it was a matter of applying the squeeze.

With Rommel`s army in retreat in Libya we had good reason to feel exhilerated, but our delight was suddenly shattered when we learned that cousin Reg had been too close to an exploding shell and would be sent home to recuperate. He was eventually invalided out of the Army much to everyone's relief.

Meanwhile in that other part of our country, little Jean attended a convent school, afterwards waiting at home until her mother`s workday ended. An eight year-old she had grown tired of wearing the same old clothes, her clothing coupons had all been used for replacement school uniforms.
One day, arriving home knowing she had 1hour 45 minutes to wait she unwisely decided to make something different to wear. Taking a blanket as thick as felt clearly stamped 'Government Issue', she folded it in half with the words inside and cut out an all-in-one top and trousers. Then working against the clock she cobbled it together round the edges with long tacking stitches. The neckline was removed and a single short cut down the front ebled her to climb inside. Dressed in this spledid outfit she proudly cycled down to meet her mother. While cycling, the stitches stretched and by the time she arrived she was a sorry sight. Her mother was not impressed, not least because Jean had ruined a perfectly good blanket. Not long after, when the rag-and-bone man came down her street, she exchanged her 'outfit' for a goldfish.

An acquaintence of mine was practising on his violin during an air-raid. Not bothering to take cover he had set up his music stand positioned behind a central pillar in his large Victorian bay window. A bomb hit the house opposite and his windows shattered sending thousands of glass splinters flying into the room. Stunned by the noise of the explosion he carefully examined his violin for damage and was amazed to discover it safe and intact. Then he became aware of a familiar red stain spreading the length of his long shirt sleeves. The central pillar had saved him from anything worse than a few minor cuts. "You never know your luck!" he told me.

Very few bombs landed on our town and those that did came from German bombers leaving London and jettising their remaining bombs `in the countryside`. One fell in front of a family`s air-raid shelter at the bottom of our road, filling it wit a lethal mixture of shrapnel, stones and earth with its violent blast. By a stroke of good fortune, the whole family were out at the cinema at the time. The last of the bombs landed on the allotments a hundred yards from our house shaking every window, but strangely not shattering them. That was frightening!

When I turned thirteen years of age I wanted to join the A.T.C. (Air Training Corps); there were Army Cadet and Navy Cadet Corps I could have joined but I fancied being a pilot. The official enrolment age was fourteen years, so I lied about my age. To please my father I became a bugler in the ATC Band and marched at the head of the church parades on Sundays blowing my heart out enthusiastically if not entirely musically. Eventually we were offered the chance of spending a week in camp on an operational aerodrome at Stradishall.

We were starry-eyed and not a little aprehensive not knowing what we might see, yet, though we were proud to be in the company of all those experienced airmen we were surprised by the low key murmur of their voices in the mess-hall that first night. Not long after the meal the bomber squadron prepared to take off on a mission over Germany and we cheered them on their way. In the early hours of the morning the steady drone of returning aircraft woke us early. After breakfast with much chattering we hastened to the hangers anxious to get our first look at the planes. But we were in for a shock. The shattered remains of our aircraft numbed us into silenceas we slowly passed bullet-riddled fusilages, holes where pieces had been blown away, burned out engines and worse ... rear gunner turrets shot to pieces and splattered with blood. An airman told me later that a rear-gunner`s life expectancy was reckoned to be a mere 18 flying hours - and these brave young menhad to go out night after night; small wonder their voices had been so low in the airmen`s mess-hall the night before,they had had no reason to be cheerful. We were aghast, and in that moment the full horror of war hit us in all its awfulness.

To add to our miseries, father`s job was badly paid and it was a constant struggle to raise a relatively large family, despite the lack of things to buy. It was decided I would have to leave school before taking my School Certificate and increase our income by going out to work. As my final term drew to a close I persuaded my headmaster to let me organise the first end-of-term concert to be produced during wartime. Our school was divided in two, the boys classrooms alongside one side of the Grand Assembly Hall, the girls on the other. Plea`s for acts attracted responses and at the first rehearsal I met Beryl, a girl my own age who could impersonate various celebrities. As it happened, I too had a little repertoire of `voices` so we joined forces in a double-act. The show was successful - made more so because of the tensions of war I have no doubt - and Beryl and I decided to exploit our talents.

We performed wherever they required acts: for a cabaret, a concert party, in local cinemas, pubs, masonic halls, clubs, and more importantly, in old folks homes, hospital wards and before both British and Canadian units stationed nearby. But that was nearer the end of the war.

I had to leave school at the age of 14yrs, my father`s wage was barely sufficient to provide for 2 adults and 3 children. Air-raids had become a nightly inconvenience but sadly we were becoming numb to all the individual tragedies, survival was all that matered, although for me the war was yet to come closer.

My first job was as a lowly insurance clerk working out of Northwood. My duties included travelling up to London by rail each day with the morning mail to our other offices in Fenchurch Street in the heart of the city. Although there was little danger before nightfall by which time I had returned to Northwood, there were occasional daytime raids. On one occasion I was out delivering letters to nearby insurance companies, and while walking along the Thames embankment the alarm sirens sounded. Since it was daytime I shrugged it off believing it to be another false alarm, but then I heard the familiar drone of a German bomber and hastily ducked into a dooway in a side-street. Seconds later there came an almighty explosion far too close for comfort, I felt the blast tear at my clothes. When I peered round the corner to look along the embankment I nearly vomited.. A horse and cart had been standing several yards down the road, now the horse was much nearer , on its back with its stomach and part of its face blown away. I did not tell my parents afterwards - I did not want them to worry.

On my delivery round I passed the Mansion HOuse where Dame Myra Hess gave lunchtime piano recitals. I believe these were open to the public with free admission and I have always regretted I did not attend any. Returning to the office I had to pass through Leadenhall Market where I saw for the first time in my life horse-meat on sale. Horse-meat was not rationed, and despite my recent close encounter, it appeared so red and inviting I bought a sizable piece. My mother cooked it and we sat down to eat it with much trepidation, but we need not have worried, we thoroughly enjoyed it, the nearest thing we had had to a nice juicy steak since those pre-war days, and we so desperately needed the nourishment at that time. It gradually emerged that restaurants had been buying horse-meat for a long time, nevertheless, it was listed as steak or beef on the menus. All those customers who sat down at the table saying, "I could eat a horse!" were actually doing so without realizing it.

In 1943 it became compulsory for women aged 18-45yrs to do part-time work and very soon they were singing along with 大象传媒's regular record broadcasts of 'Worker`s Playtime', programmes of popular music that were relayed over Tannoy systems in every factory. This was the moment women realized they were as capable as men when it came to doing that which formerly had been regarded as 'man`s work' (as if being a mother or a housewife was not as arduous as any full-time job)

When the first of Hitler`s flying-bombs hit the city we called them 'doodle-bugs'. A primitive jet-engine brought it a pre-determined distance when the engine cut out and down it came. Totally inaccurate, its random strikes were all the more terrifying. Our Spitfires and Hurricanes could not outpace them but when they saw one approaching they turned about, waited until the bomb was in the passing position and then tipped it off-course with their wing-tip. If they were lucky the bomb would veer off and drop relatively harmlessly in the countryside outside London. However, far too many managed to get through.

Now you might think these nuisances would have terrified everyone, and without doubt they were a constant source of worry to many, but it rarely showed on their faces or in their behaviour. Many became quite dismissive of the dangers to the extent that whenever the sirens sounded we would all rush to the fifth-storey rooftop to watch the doodle-bugs pass overhead. Crazy? Ofcourse it was! Was it a death wish? Not at all, it was rather our way of cocking a snoot at Hitler and his gang. Even so, when we heard one's engine cut out we did not hang around, we fell over one another laughing like loons as we made a mad dash for the stairs. Not once did we reach a perceived point of safety before we heard the explosion. Ofcourse, if our building had received a direct hit - well you can imagine, can't you? As it was, we survived, but it continued to be a 'black' joke.

I have enjoyed a life-time researching British Film Animation and although only a youth in wartime I was aware that our animators were kept very busy by the various Ministries, the War dept. and branches of the Armed Forces. The MoI`s film efforts throughout the war included: ways of co-ercing the public to save valuable waste materials; economy food flashes; the dangers of careless talk; how to avoid the spread of coughs, colds and sneezes by the use of a handkerchief, etc. Habits of a lifetime had to be halted and re-directed and to this end hundreds of pithy propoganda `Flashes` were launched in leaflets, on radio and in live-action and animated cartoon films. Householders quickly came to realize the value of their discarded rubbish. Seemingly overnight waste materials acquired charismatic status as 'weapons of war', these included paper,rags,bones, alunium saucepans, iron railings, rubber overshoes and old wellington boots. Scrapings off dinnerplates were the pig-farmer`s greatest ally. The contents of dustbins when separated could be transformed into items essential to the defence of the realm.

One cartoon short "The Walrus and the Carpenter" highlighted the dangers of a foreign body in the waste with this parody:
"The time has come the Walrus says
To talk of many things
Of nails and wood and paper clips
And bits of wire and springs
And old tin cans and bottle tops
Ans glass and pots and strings.
TITLE: DON'T MIX THESE WITH YOUR PAPER.

Bones could be turned into explosives, glue, bone-meal and fertilizer. Metals were transformed into bayonets; rubber into gas-masks; paper became packaging cartons for all the Services; string and rags were turned into camouflage materials. Short films demonstrated how old clothing, curtains and drapes could be transformed into new items of clothing with the exhortation "Think of the coupons you'll save". Conservation, restoration and general good care of existing commodities in everyday use received as much attention.

We were urged to turn part or all of our garden into vegetable plots and Dig For Victory leaflets were made available. Parents were urged to have their children immunised against the then present danger of diptheria and warned that 'every five hours a child dies from diptheria.'

Simple old-fashioned commonsense, to be sure, but even the gospel of commonsense needs to be takenout of hiding and subjected to the glare of nationwide publicity, especially in wartime.

Hell! - no-one said it was going to be easy. It was up to each and every one of us to exercise restraint and make the best possible use of those elements which could assist us in our work. Cinemas stayed open even after the warning sirens sounded and programmes remained uninterrupted,in fact, people became quite unconcerned in the face of imminent danger, preferring to remain in their saets even when enemy bombers were heard overhead. Sitting in one of the town`s oldest cinemas one evening while a raid was in progress, I looked up and discovered to my surprise I could see searchlights and exploding flak through a hole in the roof.

The first pre-fabricated bungalows were ntroduced in 1944. These were only expected to last for a short period but they were so well built they were still standing and inhabited forty years on. My future wife`s mother was one of the first to get one and lived out her life therein.

By the time the first V-1 rockets fell in June '44 I had decided to get a job in my home-town both for safety`s sake and to quieten my mother`s fears. Considering the vastly increased devastating explosive power of the V-rockets it seemed a wise and sensible precautionary move.

TO BE CONCLUDED IN PART THREE .

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